Review trims fuel intake bill by 1%

The economic slowdown has led to a silver lining of sorts for India as it has cut its forecast for fuel consumption by about 1 per cent to 155.63 million tonnes in the current fiscal.

The fuel demand revision, according to the Petroleum Planning Analysis Cell (PPAC), is mostly on account of almost halving of growth in consumption of cooking gas (LPG) to 5.6 per cent. This was being seen as immediate fallout of the government decision to cap supply of subsidised LPG.

According to PPAC of the Oil Ministry’s mid-term review, it has trimmed forecast for fuel to 155 million tonnes in 2012-13, from the earlier projected figure of 157.07 million tonnes. It had projected a 5.2 per cent rise in fuel demand in the current fiscal over 148.13 million tons of petroleum products consumed in the previous year.

Fuel consumption in 2011-12 had grown by about 5 per cent and PPAC had at the beginning of the fiscal projected a growth rate of 6 per cent in 2012-13.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had earlier this week stated that the economy will grow by 5.7 per cent in current fiscal, down from 6.5 per cent in the previous.

PPAC said, 2012-13 will end with a 16.22 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumption.

Demand for diesel, which accounts for 45 per cent of the fuel consumption in the country, is projected to rise by 8.3 per cent to 70.1 million tonnes. PPAC had previously projected a growth of 5.9 per cent.

PPAC projected a 5.5 per cent growth in petrol demand at 15.82 million tonnes, while kerosene is expected to see a 9.5 per cent drop in consumption to 7.45 million tonnes.

Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) too is projected to see a fall in demand of 7.2 per cent at 5.13 million tonnes. Naphtha consumption is, however, projected to grow by 7.6 per cent to 11.95 million tonnes.